TIPS calls routed to "America's Most Wanted"!

[Yet another "great conservative idea", i.e., the 'partnership between
government and private enterprise' hard at work. Gag!]

In Surreal Development, Bush Administration Routes TIPS Calls to TV Show
"America's Most Wanted"

WASHINGTON - August 6 - In a development bordering on what the American
Civil Liberties Union called "surreal," the on-line magazine Salon.com
today revealed that the Department of Justice is forwarding incoming
Operation TIPS calls to the Fox-owned "America's Most Wanted" television
series.

"This is like retaining Arthur Andersen to do all of the SEC's
accounting," said Rachel King, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "It's a
completely inappropriate and frightening intermingling of government power
and the private sector. What's next - the government hires Candid Camera
to do its video surveillance?"

"If it continues to cooperate with the government on Operation TIPS,
America's Most Wanted should move networks and rename itself 'Big
Brother,'" King said.

The author of the Salon article, David Lindorff, reportedly signed up for
TIPS more than a month ago, heard nothing and followed up last week with a
phone call to the Department of Justice, the agency responsible for
overseeing the proposed program. The department gave Lindorff another
phone number, which it said had been set up by the FBI. When he dialed
that number, Lindorff was greeted by a receptionist for "America's Most
Wanted," which features reenactments of unsolved crimes and then asks the
public to phone in leads and tips.

Shocked that the number did not connect to the FBI, Lindorff was told,
"We've been asked to take the FBI's TIPS calls for them." The ACLU today
said that, not only does the Operation TIPS program on its own pose
serious threats to the American ideal that neighbors not be expected to
inform on neighbors, but the program, when coupled with the power and
profit incentives of television, could enhance its resemblance to Big
Brother through sensationalism and the thirst for advertising revenue.

Even before its partnering with Fox Television, the Operation TIPS program
has come under a barrage of criticism from both the left and the
right. House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-TX), one of the most
powerful and conservative members of Congress, introduced a measure in his
chamber's version of the Homeland Security legislation that would prohibit
the implementation of TIPS and other similar measures. Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has also opposed the
proposal, saying "We could be vigilant, but we don't want to be
vigilantes."

"Why stop with America's Most Wanted?" King added. "If a sensational story
is what it was looking for, the Department of Justice should have just
hired Jerry Springer as its public information officer."

The Salon article can be found on-line at:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/08/06/tips/index_np.html